Life As I Know It…

is about to drastically change.My job is no longer simply learning about the basic science of disorders and regurgitating answers on exams…starting next week I get my first real taste of what a doctor does. My first clinical rotation is Internal Medicine and I am very excited to see the ins and outs of hospital work. I’m ready to get into the nitty gritty of what I came to medical school for in the first place – patient care.

Clinic Clothes: The past two years I have mostly been able to get by with hole-ridden jeans, casual t-shirts, and Toms. Starting next week I will be dressing nice on an almost daily basis and it’s high time I hunt down a wardrobe that doesn’t make me feel like I’m playing dress-up in my mom’s church clothes every day.

Confidence:Confidence is a huge part of success – you’re entirely more likely to be taken seriously, to learn and to accomplish if you’re confident in your abilities to do so. I’m trying to stay cognizant of the fact that I’ve come a long way in the last two years and maintain an attitude of humbleness, while reminding myself that I am capable.

Sleep Schedules: I hate getting up early (I know…wrong profession), but it’s much easier when I’m doing it on a schedule. Some medical students claim to sleep 4 or 5 hours a night and well, that just won’t work for me. I need a reasonable amount of sleep or my brain literally feels like a fog machine…and we all know an 80’s dance party is no place to learn the art and science of doctoring.

Time Management: As I discussed earlier my time is no longer my own and, as such, it is going to be absolutely pivotal for me to maintain schedules of time management in order to keep spending as much time as possible with my husband. I also want to make sure I have adequate study time and free-time to devote to my furry children and to this blog. I should probably also work towards devoting a little time to some form of …*gasp*…exercise (not that I want to or anything). So, scheduling and efficiency becomes my newest obsession.

And, because I have no witty or creative way to end this post, I’d like to put it out there that I was carded while buying a 5-Hour Energy yesterday.

From this experience I learned two things:

Must be 18 to buy energy drinks.

I look somewhere in the vicinity of...”I just got my driver’s license!” years old.

I know, everyone older than me is saying “you’ll appreciate it when you’re 50,” but people have been telling me that since I was driving myself to restaurants and still getting the “12 & Under” kid’s menus and it’s never made me feel better.Right now all it does is make me think that I’ll be a 30-year old doctor pregnant with my first child and still getting the stank eye from old ladies for being pregnant before I can buy lottery tickets.

And, just so this is a completely random, how about you share some tips with me as I go into 3rd year? I’d love to hear your advice!

Good luck with starting your clinical rotations. It's a completely different world, but mostly in a good way. As for advice….I would say to try not to get too stressed out about things. I personally was very stressed for most of my two years of clinical training, as I was worried about getting into the residency program of my choice (and at times worried about getting into any residency program at all). I realize looking back that no one expects medical students to be particularly good at what they're doing (that's why it's school rather than a job), and that the main criteria by which medical students are judged is how hard they work and how good their attitude is. If you can master those two things, everything will be fine.

Also…take some time for yourself. I went an entire year without ever taking a lunch break because I thought it made me look dedicated, and I realize in retrospect that it wasn't useful or helpful. You need to take care of yourself to enjoy the experience and to be useful to others.

here, they have to card anyone who looks under 40 to get anything that requires an ID. I bought one of those drinks for a classmate and got carded, I'm 46, I don't look anywhere near the 16/17 age range … I don't think I look under 40 either, but I'll take it! ;o)

Good luck! Advice: be enthusiastic about everything, if there is a job to do offer to do it, study for the shelves starting week 1 of the rotation, allow yourself more time than you think you'll need for prerounding,and carry a protein bar in your pocket at all times!!!

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I’m an Ob/Gyn resident (that means I went to medical school to become a doctor) and now I'm working like a crazy person to learn my trade before I'm on my own in the wild. Once upon a time I birthed a couple of babies of my own, they're friggin' adorable twin toddlers now. My life story through November 2010 can be viewed here. The events in the many years following can be summed up as wedding bells, books, exams, babies, and doctoring. I only started this blog in hopes of landing a role in a Lifetime movie so I could quit medicine and move to Hollywood, so if you wouldn't take medical advice from Angelina Jolie, you shouldn't take it from me. I may not even be a real person. In fact, I'm probably a spambot. Or possibly a 15 yo boy blogging from a dingy basement. If you're really interested you can read more about me here. If you have any questions or want to guest post contact me.